The long-standing Presentation Translation plug-in will be included in PowerPoint from January 2019. It will add real-time captions to slides for what you say, either in your language or translated to another language.

Office Watch told you about Presentation Translator back in July 2017. It’s a Microsoft Garage test project that’s about to hit the big time.

In January 2019 it’ll become available to PowerPoint 365 for Windows and Mac plus PowerPoint Online.

At last, Peter will be able to speak in public while acknowledging the needs of any Klingons in the audience!

When it becomes available, you’ll find it on the Slide Show tab as ‘Always Use Subtitles’ and ‘Subtitle Settings’

Source: fuzzy still image from a Microsoft video.

The captioning service requires a good Internet connection because it uses Microsoft’s cloud services to handle the ‘speech to text’ and translation duties.

According to Microsoft, live captions & subtitles in PowerPoint brings:

The power of AI to presenters, so they can convey simple and complex information across subjects and topics.

Speech recognition that automatically adapts based on the presented content for more accurate recognition of names and specialized terminology.

The ability for presenters to easily customize the size, position, and appearance of subtitles. Customizations may vary by platform.

A peace of mind with security and compliance knowing that the feature meets many industry standards for compliance certifications.